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Handwriting vs Typewriting
Sometimes I feel like a bit of a weird person. I don't think that's out of the ordinary to say. I have many different quirks that send my life down all kinds of fancy directions. Most people have some of those. However, there's one thing that seems to surprise everyone when I tell them that I do this: despite having a keyboard, I still write with pen and paper. Not everything - like this, obviously - but a good number of stories I still write out in journals or notebooks, or if I'm out, plain old lined paper later bound in a three-ring notebook. In recent years, handwriting has faded a lot as computers have taken over. Writing on a keyboard is considered to be more convenient, faster, better. And writing a lot with pen and paper makes your hand hurt like no tomorrow. But why do I do it? There's certainly something to be said about aesthetics. Handwriting - your own handwriting that you can personally read - tends to look better than the typical Times New Roman you see every single day. The words are interesting and take on their own unique form. And there is something just... mystical and personal about coming across writing that has that much personality. However, aesthetics is not why I do it. If I cared that much about sacrificing convenience for aesthetics, I would probably use a typewriter. Typewriters feel the most like actually writing, but despite the cliched view of old-schools writers ramming away on them, typewriters are incredibly inconvenient. Most notably - typewriters cannot erase spelling errors without special equipment, and formatting is fucking hell. It's hard to describe exactly why I like writing down on pen and paper, rather than on a computer. The first thing that comes to my head is that writing with pen and paper is much slower than writing with a typewriter. That sounds like a disadvantage, and in many ways it is. However, when typing you frequently get the problem of "stop and start." Your typing gets far ahead of your thoughts and you need to stop for awhile and think of the next sentence. What's more tiring for your hand is more relaxing for the mind. When writing on pen and paper, I'm almost always continually going, and this is actually useful for beating writer's block. It also helps that, even if you use an 8-11 standard piece of lined notebook paper, you will get through more pages with the same amount of words. Six pages of 12-pt Times New Roman font equals fifteen pages on one of my notebooks. It's fairly small in size, but I tend to write semi-small. While this may seem like it's only purpose is aesthetic, I cannot tell you how fulfilling it is to basically be tearing through pages. It's probably psychological/a placebo, but at the same time we've all been there where we have a hard time progressing in our work because there's just so much blank space on this page and it becomes intimidating. Finally, and this is the hardest to explain: writing with pen and paper is much more intimidate than writing on the computer. It's probably really subjective, but when I write with pen and paper I feel much more close to the story that I'm putting down. After all, it's in my own personal handwriting. Not something that millions of other people use every day. Each word looks like my own word, and that can be a very powerful thing sometimes. Also, there is something to be said about a certain type of convenience. As a kid, I traveled a lot and that meant that I couldn't bring the computer everywhere. I eventually got a laptop, but even portable electrical devices have limitations - namely running out of batteries. Also, they tend to be bulkier and more awkward. Right now, only one room in my house has an air conditioner and it's not my computer room, so instead of moving the whole PC, I can just bring a notebook. On top of that, there are other minor things. You're not bothered, constantly, by spell-check. While it is important at the end, constantly correcting your words as you go can end up breaking your flow or making your writing choppy. And of course, there's fitting words on one line. If you have a lot of space left, you may be interested in filling it, but a computer is going to put it onto the next line unless you hyphenate, and sometimes you can't grammatically hyphenate in a good place or you don't want to. With pen and paper, all you have to do is write the word a little smaller. A reader probably wouldn't even notice, provided they can read cursive. That's another thing - the assurance of privacy. A lot of my peers in school couldn't read in cursive, so it was basically an easy-to-use secret language that I could use to keep my stories private and write about whatever I wanted without ridicule or criticism. It was pretty... interesting. Of course, the downside that everyone brings up - writer's cramp. I don't get writer's cramp. Here's why - you're holding the pen too hard. Also, you're probably using the wrong kind of pen. Maybe one that has corners? My favorite type of pen is a rollerball pen with a grip. They move across the page smoothly. The important part in general is to make sure that the pen is round. Pens with corners/straight edges are for better grip, which is great if your handwriting is sloppy or you're doing calligraphy or something. Rounded pens are better for going faster, or writing longer without pain in your hand. It's possible to write for hours on end without your hand getting sore in the slightest. It just takes some practice. I dunno. What do you think? It's pen-and-paper writing completely dead to you? Or do you still do it occasionally? Category:Miscellaneous